Friday, March 20, 2015

Do you remember back when Chick-fil-A's very godly and conservative CEO
defended the chain's big donations to anti-marriage-equality groups by
declaring that same-sex marriage was "inviting God's judgment" on
America? In the halls of Congress, it has turned Chick-fil-A into the official Republican junk food.

Since [CEO Dan Cathy] made his controversial comments, House
Republicans have spent nearly $13,000 in taxpayer money ordering
Chick-fil-A, according to expenditure reports filed through July 2014
(the latest available). READ MORE

The Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500
million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen, amid fears that the
weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by
Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials.
With Yemen in turmoil and its government splintering, the Defense
Department has lost its ability to monitor the whereabouts of small
arms, ammunition, night-vision goggles, patrol boats, vehicles and other
supplies donated by the United States....[.]
In recent weeks, members of Congress have held closed-door meetings
with U.S. military officials to press for an accounting of the arms and
equipment. Pentagon officials have said that they have little
information to go on and that there is little they can do at this point
to prevent the weapons and gear from falling into the wrong hands.

The tragicomedy of the apparent loss of these weapons has shined a
light on our counterterrorism policy in now-collapsing Yemen, a subject
few in our media care about, judging from the lack of coverage compared
to, for example, burning questions about Hillary Clinton's email server.
Our supposedly representative Congress held "closed-door" meetings
with DOD officials last week, asking the Pentagon to account for all of
this hardware. The Pentagon brass essentially shrugged its shoulders:

“We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,”
said a legislative aide on Capitol Hill who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The densely populated megalopolis of South Florida is losing it's
water wells as sea water intrudes into the Biscayne Aquifer. Salt water
has already moved 6 miles inland in Broward County and is likely to
continue to creep westward. Ninety percent of South Florida gets its
drinking water from underground supplies, most from the Biscayne
aquifer. This inland movement observed in Broward County is due to urban
withdrawals from the Biscayne Aquifer, ocean water moving sideways into
the aquifer and seepage of saltwater from surface sources.

Governor Scott, this is threatening the habitability of a region of
close to 6 million of your fellow Floridians. Your inaction and
hostility towards climate issues and sustainability now threatens funds and other aid from FEMA
as they will not give money to any state that does not plan for climate
change. Where is the disaster relief going to come from if not from
Federal sources?

The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan’s main purpose is to
increase freshwater flow to the southern Everglades. This will help
offset the effect of sea-level rise and help preserve Everglades
ecologies and southern Florida’s water supply (South Florida Water
Management District, 2009a). The South Florida Water Management District
already spends millions of dollars per year to prevent Miami’s Biscayne
Aquifer from becoming brackish (Miller et al., 1989). Rising sea level
will cause groundwater near the coast to become more saline and
groundwater levels to increase.

In 2010, as Daily Kos readers are well aware, Republican swept to
victory in Congress, taking back the House and making big gains in the
Senate. At the same time, they also captured many governorships and
legislatures, giving them control of the decennial redistricting
process. With the map-maker's pencil firmly in hand, these new GOP
majorities were able to draw district lines that favored them both at
the congressional and legislative levels.

Scholars and pundits have debated exactly how much these maps are
tilted in the Republicans' favor, but at Daily Kos Elections, we've
developed one metric that's methodologically rigorous and highly
illustrative of the GOP's advantage, relying on the "median seat" in
each legislative chamber or state congressional delegation. The numbers,
as we will explain, are starkly in favor of the Republicans.
Previously, we calculated the results of the 2012 presidential election according to every congressional and legislative district in the nation.
That allows us to determine every state's median congressional district
and every chamber's median legislative seat. But what do we mean by
this median seat? In state legislatures, the median seat is the
theoretical halfway point in each chamber whereby, if Democrats held
every seat bluer (or Republicans held every seat redder), they'd control
a majority of seats in that body.

For instance, in Ohio's state House, Mitt Romney won the median seat
by a 51.3 to 47.6 margin. That means that if Democrats want to retake
the House under the current map, they'd need to win all the districts
that suported Romney by a 3.7 percent margin or less—at a minimum.
Things rarely work out so precisely, though: Since Republicans are
likely to hold a few seats that are bluer than this threshold, Democrats
would have to capture a some redder seats as well. That's no easy task.READ MORE

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took a whack at Fox "news" for
the double standard when it comes to their screaming for accountability
on Ferguson while refusing to hold themselves accountable for their
Benghazi witch hunt.

And in the weeks since, Fox News has been questioning where all the
apologies are for people who pushed that narrative. Stewart agreed,
asking, “Wouldn’t it be nice if people who jumped to conclusions and
peddled a false divisive anger-stoking narrative had to apologize for
misleading America?” READ MORE

Thursday, March 19, 2015

President Obama continues his new stride as he chides Republicans for
their failed prognostications. Democratic politicians encouraged his
silence during the 2014 elections. Imagine what could have been if
Americans had realized they had something to vote for. Imagine if
Americans had believed that those pushing a relatively progressive
agenda believed in that agenda and was willing to fight for that agenda.

Back in January President Obama chided Republicans
for their new found love for the American poor and the American middle
class. On Wednesday he did more than that. He pointed out how off base
Republican willful deceptive prognostication of his policies were.

Now, I want to return to the issue of the debate that we
were having then because it bears on the debate we’re having now. It’s
important to note that at every step that we've taken over the past six
years we were told our goals were misguided; they were too ambitious;
that my administration’s policies would crush jobs and explode deficits,
and destroy the economy forever. Remember that? Because sometimes we
don’t do the instant replay, we don’t run the tape back, and then we end
up having the same argument going forward. READ MORE

Earlier today a shooter went on a rampage in Mesa, Arizona, allegedly killing one man, injuring five others and stealing a car.According to the SPLC, Ryan Giroux is a well-known member of hate groups in the area.

Ryan Giroux, who allegedly murdered one person and
wounded five others earlier today and was arrested after a frenzied
manhunt, was released from prison in Arizona in 2013. According to
prison records, he has convictions for attempt to commit aggravated
assault, marijuana, theft, and second degree burglary. Records indicate
that he was sentenced to a total of about 14 years in prison. READ MORE

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

A new CNN/ORC poll shows Hillary Clinton dominating the Republican field
... which pretty much explains the Republican obsession with Eghazi and
Benghazi and any other eye-roller of an allegation they can come up
with. In the poll's head-to-head match-ups,
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul comes the closest to Clinton, but her 11-point
lead over him, 54 percent to 43 percent, isn't what you'd call razor
thin.

After Paul, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio trails Clinton by a mere 13
points, 55 to 42, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is one more point
back, drawing 41 percent to Clinton's steady 55 percent, and Wisconsin
Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie all poll 15 points behind Clinton, 55 to 40. Former
neurosurgeon Ben Carson also polls at 40 percent, but Clinton gains an
extra point on him, rising to 56 percent. READ MORE

Four of the Republican's most vulnerable senators
who decided to follow Sen. Tom Cotton into battle against the White
House by addressing a letter to Iran's leaders are likely regretting
that move. Among Cotton's 46 co-signers were Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mark Kirk of Illinois, and Rob Portman of Ohio.

The letter, which was an effort to scuttle the Obama administration's
diplomatic efforts to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, is also
having a nuclear effect back home.In New Hampshire: A hometown editorial read, "Ayotte signs up for a dangerous political game."

"When Ayotte signed her name on that piece of paper, she
cast her lot with a thoughtless brand of politics splintered from the
thread of American diplomatic history. Time and future negotiations will
reveal the damage done." --The Concord Monitor

In Wisconsin: A new poll found Ron Johnson sucking wind against for Sen. Russ Feingold.

Johnson, who rode the Republican tidal wave of 2010 to
victory over longtime incumbent Democrat Russ Feingold, comes in at just
32% approval, making him one of the least popular senators in the
country.

Feingold, meanwhile, is the most popular Wisconsin politician
included in this poll with 46/35 favorability. He holds a healthy
nine-point lead over Johnson in a hypothetical re- match of their 2010
race, 50/41. READ MORE

Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the chairman of the Senate
Republican Policy Committee, said: "Millions of people have lost
coverage they liked, and out-of-pocket costs continue to rise. Coverage
does not equal care."

Moreover, he said, the addition of people to the Medicaid rolls is "hardly worth celebrating."

CBS News and 60 Minuteslove carrying water for Republicans in their ongoing war on Social Security. In the fall of 2013, it was Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) attack on Social Security disability,
in which the news magazine presented an entire segment without talking
to one single disabled person or disability advocate and declared that
the program was "a secret welfare system ... ravaged by waste and
fraud." In that case, the program previewed sham report Coburn was
releasing. This weekend, they did it again, previewing a Senate hearing
on the Social Security Administration's massive database, the "Death
Master File," touting the possibilities for fraud and abuse if someone
was either incorrectly reported dead or the converse, died and didn't
show up on the file.

The LA Times' indispensable Michael Hiltzik details all the things that reporter Scott Pelley and 60 Minutes
bungled in this story, errors that were compounded in the Senate
hearing it previewed. Among them the basic starting point that this
isn't the fault of the Social Security Administration, at all.

Numerous studies by its own inspector general and the
Government Accountability Office suggest that for the Social Security
Administration to verify every report it receives of 2.8 million
American deaths per year would be a Herculean job.

Why? Because those reports arrive from thousands of sources of
varying reliability across the country--funeral directors, family
members, banks, Medicare and Veterans Affairs offices, post offices.
Social Security considers the most reliable source to be electronic
death records from the states, but only 35 states submit these to the
agency. […] READ MORE

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party was the clear winner
in Tuesday’s election, a near-final tally showed early Wednesday
morning, defeating the Zionist Union by a margin of some six seats.

That margin was far more decisive than TV exit polls had predicted
when polling booths closed at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. All three TV polls had
put Likud and Zionist Union neck-and-neck at 27 seats, albeit with
Netanyahu better-placed to form a coalition.

On the basis of those TV polls, Netanyahu hailed a Likud victory,
though Herzog refused to concede. As counting proceeded through the
night, however, the Likud opened a growing margin of victory.
By 5 a.m., with some 90% of votes counted, the Central Elections
Committee was indicating a dramatic victory for Netanyahu, with the
Likud heading for 29 seats, compared to Zionist Union’s 24 seats.

Next came the Joint (Arab) List on 14 seats, Yesh Atid on 11,
Kulanu on 10 and the Jewish Home on 8. They were followed by Shas, 7,
United Torah Judaism on 6, Yisrael Beytenu on 6, and Meretz on 5 seats.

Four hours earlier, at 1 a.m., Netanyahu claimed a victory “against
all odds” and promised to form a new government without delay. But
Herzog also said he would make “every effort” to build a coalition.
Either will likely need the support of Moshe Kahlon of the Kulanu party,
whose campaign focused almost entirely on bread-and-butter economic
issues, refused to take sides, but he is a former Likud minister. READ MORE

Today's right-wing faux scandal: Hillary Clinton did not sign a document she was not
required to sign. Not only was she not required to sign it, Colin
Powell, Condoleeza Rice, and every other Secretary of State wasn't
required to sign it either. Nor did they.

This did not prevent the Republican National Committee from playing
some politics with it, and using their very own propaganda channel to
amplify it.

You can look at form OF-109 -- the form they requested -- here.
It is a form for rank-and-file employees to sign upon termination,
agreeing to turn over all classified and unclassified materials to the
department which employed them. Here's something you should notice if
you look at the form carefully:
officials
versus employees here.

Yes, you're reading that right. The "OF" on the form designation stands for optional form.
Optional. That means it is not in any way, shape or form a required
form from anyone, much less a cabinet level officer of the government.
TPM has a good discussion post about requirements of appointed officials
versus employees here. READ MORE

At an event in South Carolina on Tuesday, Republican
presidential candidate Jeb Bush was asked whether he thinks the country
should raise the minimum wage or whether the wage should be left up to
private companies.

“We need to leave it to the private sector,” he responded. “I think
state minimum wages are fine. The federal government shouldn’t be doing
this.” He went on, “The federal government doing this will make it
harder and harder for the first rung of the ladder to be reached,
particularly for young people, particularly for people that have less
education.”

He went on to connect his opposition to a federal minimum wage to his
focus on income inequality. “We’re moving to a world that is sticky in
the ends, where it’s harder for people in poverty to move up and where
the rich are doing really well and the middle is getting squeezed,” he
said. “And any idea that makes, that perpetuates that is one that I
would oppose, and I think this minimum wage idea is exactly one of those
things.” He added that the people at the bottom “would be likely the
ones that would lose their job. That’s how it’s always worked.” READ MORE

Some stories make national headlines, but many do not. One of those
that was swept under the rug and ignored by almost all of the national
mainstream media, was the shooting of 26-year-old Tarika Wilson and her 14-month-old infant child.
Now, community activists are calling for this case to be reexamined and
brought into the national spotlight on police brutality and
extrajudicial killings.

“This thing just stinks to high heaven, and the police know it,”
Jason Upthegrove, the president of the Lima chapter of the N.A.A.C.P.
said. “We’re not asking for answers anymore. We’re demanding them.”

That was 7 years ago to the month. No answers ever came, in spite of
the demands. So much of the corporate media ignored this blatant story
of police abuse and murder. But with many high profile cases like those
of Crawford and Rice at the tip of the nation’s collective tongue, some
believe that maybe now the rest of the country will listen about this
assassination that was carried out by Ohio police officers.

Back in 2008, a SWAT team showed up at Wilson’s house in Lima, Ohio’s
Southside neighborhood. It was early in the evening on January 4th. The
warrant the SWAT cops had was part of the failed so-called “War on
Drugs.”

But it was not Wilson who was named on the warrant, it was her
companion Anthony Terry. Without any warning, officers smashed her door
down and entered with machine guns drawn, according to neighbors who
witnessed the raid.

In just seconds, SWAT officers shot and killed Wilson, 26, and wounded her 14-month-old son.READ MORE

There are two ways for the captains to load their boats with slaves.
One system is called loose packing to deliver slaves. Under that system,
captains transported fewer slaves than their ships could carry in order
to reduce the disease and deaths among them. The other system is the
cruelest one and is called tight packing. This system was based on the
fact that the more slaves they had, the more profit they could make.
They carried as many slaves as their ship could carry, and often more.
In the ship’s hold, the slaves were chained ankle to wrist, with barely
any place to move.Sanitary/hygiene

In the worse case, the captains did not provide any kinds of hygiene.
In other boats, the captains placed buckets for the slaves’ excrements,
but there was never one bucket per slave. Slaves who were close to the
buckets used it but those who were farther away often tumbled and fell
on others while trying to reach it. Severely hindered by the shackles
that were tightly secured around their ankles, most slaves preferred to
ease themselves where they were rather than to bruise themselves in the
process of trying to reach it. Also, some sailors would be ordered to go
below deck to wash the slaves briefly. Although the crew avoided the
slaves, they often would call a woman on deck to satisfy their desires.
When weather conditions were bad, the conditions of the quarters
dramatically worsened. The slaves’ holding quarters were so hot and
humid that the floor of their rooms was covered with layers of filth
during most of the voyage. READ MORE

As in any mercantile system,
slave agents recorded, insured, advertised, displayed, and finally,
sold their “wares” to the highest bidders. To prepare for sales, dealers
fed, cleaned, and oiled down slaves to hide disease and to improve
appearance. Sales took place on ship decks, in slave pens, by preset
contract, or at auction. On the auction block, potential buyers examined
every part of these men and women’s anatomy. Healthy young men usually
sold first and for the highest value.
Printed advertisements for the sale of slaves were posted to attract
buyers and often provided descriptions of available “merchandise.”

The Separation of Families

Yet Southern dealers and plantation owners defended their practices,
claiming that separations of families were rare and that when they did
occur, there was little hardship. South Carolinian Chancellor Harper
argued that blacks lacked any capability for domestic affection and
showed, “insensibility to ties of kindred.” In other words,
African-Americans really didn’t mind being bought and sold since they
were naturally promiscuous and lacked the ability to achieve stable
family life. This, of course, was simply paternalistic racism.

Expert witnesses to the ‘terror’ events at the World Trade Center in 2001 prepare to appear for the first time at the Danish High Court

Expert witnesses on the events of 9/11 in 2001 which triggered the global “War on Terror” are set to give evidence in public for the first time in a Danish court with testimony which casts doubt on the official narrative of what is probably the most significant global event in post-WWII history.

The two witnesses are expected to give evidence which expresses
widely shared doubts about the official explanation of the three
building collapses in New York in 2001 – especially the collapse of
World Trade Center Building 7, which received comparatively little
attention in the global mainstream media.

The pair will give evidence at the Danish High Court in Copenhagen on
Thursday as part of a case brought by Dr. Niels Harrit, who is
appealing against the outcome of a libel suit he brought against
journalist Søren Villemoes and Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.

The court case is regarded as significant by legal and other
observers as one of the witnesses, Jan Utzon, is a world-renowned
architect and member of AE911Truth, an organization of more than 2,300 architects and engineers who question the official story of the 9/11 events.

Another is Dr. Per Hedegård, a physics professor from the University
of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, who was initially a critic of
Harrit’s claims that the highly advanced explosive nano-thermite was
present in the dust present in the aftermath of the 9/11 events in the
U.S., but has reversed his position and is appearing in court to support
Dr. Harrit. READ MORE

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Thirty-three-year-old Mark Malik convinced investors and hedge-fund
ranking firms like Bloomberg LP that he was a successful Wall Street
tycoon with $100 million in assets. In actuality, he was a former waiter
and New York City traffic cop who didn't attend college and allegedly
spent investors' money on knickknacks at the Statue of Liberty Gift
Shop. Oops!

The Wall Street Journal reports
that Mark Malik is being held at the Tombs on a $1 million bail bond on
charges of securities fraud. The SEC claims he stole over $700,000 from
unwitting investors and never actually made any returns on it, instead
using the money to finance a lifestyle that included trips to the Statue
of Liberty and a $49.99 subscription to a Muslim dating site. READ MORE

Benjamin Netanyahu’s wild swerve,
from right-wing to ultra-right-wing, in the run-up to Israel’s
elections is a desperate tactic to reverse the trajectory of his
flailing campaign. But it also represents an important marker in his
career, and a clarifying moment in the course of the Israeli right.Netanyahu has generally played a coy game on
Palestinian statehood. He has supported the two-state solution in theory
but abjured it in practice. His settlement policy has, likely by
design, made negotiations impossible, which has seemed to produce his
ideal result: Israel holds on to the West Bank and Netanyahu can blame
the Palestinians for it. His new line dispenses with the coyness.

Netanyahu now opposes yielding territory, full stop. If Netanyahu
prevails, the nature of Israel's diplomatic alliance with the United
States will have to change — the U.S. cannot continue to extend its U.N.
veto to a country whose government has formally disavowed negotiations.

His comments today are more alarming still. Rallying his supporters to the polls, Netanyahu warns, “Arab voters are going to the polls in droves. Left-wing organizations are bringing them in buses.”
Of course, the availability of Arab voting rights is a longtime point
of Israeli pride, a fundamental defense of the principle of Zionism
against its existential critics. READ MORE

The Daily Show takes a look at our "meth labs of Democracy" and these
so-called "religious freedom" laws which, as host Jon Stewart noted,
are designed to protect the "real victims of discrimination" --
Christian florists.

Add Georgia—with Republicans in control of both
legislative chambers and the executive—to the list of GOP-led states
trying to pass a bill that will expand religious "freedom" at the
expense of just about every marginalized group in the country.

These bills, typically called Religious Freedom Restoration Acts
(RFRAs), have flourished recently as a backlash to the success of the
marriage equality movement. But the Georgia bill's breathtaking breadth
shows why this expansion of religious "freedom"—very much playing off
the Supreme Court's ruling in Hobby Lobby last year—will turn into a
license to discriminate against anyone (not just LGBT Americans) on the
basis of one's religious beliefs. [...] READ MORE

Thanks to Tom Cotton and his paranoid style of tomfoolery, Iran now
has more leverage than they did the day before he tried to tank the
talks altogether.Washington Post reports:

Iranian negotiators meeting with U.S. officials Monday
expressed concern over a letter from Senate Republicans warning that a
nuclear deal with President Obama might not outlast his time in office.

A senior administration official said the Iranians broached the
subject in the almost five hours of discussions led by Secretary of
State John F. Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The letter also was raised in meetings Sunday between political and
technical experts, the official said.

Iranian and U.S. officials have been critical of the open letter
addressed to Iran’s leaders. It was written by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
and signed by 46 other Republican senators. Kerry has said its claims
that Congress can modify an executive agreement are inaccurate. He also
has said that its predictions of a short shelf life for a nuclear deal
with Iran undermine his diplomatic efforts.

Rolling Stoneunderscores why I and thousands of others believe we need a more robust response than a scolding. READ MORE

Monday, March 16, 2015

A city council member raised concerns about Brockmeyer three
years ago, saying he didn't listen to testimony, review reports, or
allow witnesses to testify, and suggested that Brockmeyer not be
reappointed. Shaw acknowledged Brockmeyer's work had issues, but said,
“It goes without saying the city cannot afford to lose any efficiency in
our courts, nor experience any decrease in our fines and forfeitures,”
Shaw said.

The word has been out
on James Shaw for years, but he truly made Ferguson and its surrounding
towns so much money that it was an offer they couldn't refuse. In
addition to being the lone municipal judge in Ferguson, Ronald
Brockmeyer was paid separately to serve as a judge and prosecutor in four other municipalities,
including lead prosecutor for Florissant, municipal prosecutor for
Vinita Park, municipal prosecutor for Dellwood, and municipal judge for
Breckenridge Hills

Robert Reich recently pointed out that if you listen to rightwing
groups like the Tax Foundation, you would think California is a horrible
place for business. These groups rank it in the top 10 worst due to
"high cost" and "burdensome environmental regulations". However, these
same groups rank Sam Brownback's Kansas as one of the best.

Here's the problem with that:

Kansas is collapsing. In four short years, since the tea party
takeover, Kansas has had three credit downgrades along with a
billion-dollar budget deficit. They are struggling to fund basic
services and their education system is hanging on by a thread, with
cutbacks making it almost dead last in teacher quality, pay, student spending and pupil-teacher ratio. It's so bad that REPUBLICAN state Sen. Wint Winter Jr. said Brownback's tax cuts have been a "train wreck".

Yet while the Sunflower state is falling apart, the Eureka State is CRUSHING it.

By any metric you use, California has become the best state in the union for investors.
A great Democratic governor (Jerry Brown) and a Democratic-led
legislature turned California around in four short years from a 27
billion dollar deficit disaster into a surplus and, according to
Bloomberg, an absolute mecca for corporations! California companies in
the S&P 500 have delivered returns of 134 percent! (No other state
comes close.) These same companies outperformed the S&P 500 by a
margin of 23%; and CA tech company sales account for 52% of all the tech
sales in America.
So how can California have some of the highest business taxes and
regulations in America, and yet be the most successful? The answer is
simple. California invested in itself! READ MORE

Highly sensitive weapons negotiations
between seven nations, including the U.S., China, Russia, France, UK,
Germany, and Iran have been compromised this past week by what some call
a treasonous letter written to Iran by 47 U.S. Republican lawmakers.

This act has caused outrage nationwide against the signees of the
letter. Two of the names contained in the message are 2016 Republican
presidential candidates Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senator Marco Rubio. After condemnation came from the American people, President Obama, Democrats and even Republicans, world leaders/officials are now expressing their shock and disgust.
Karen De Young with the Washington Post relays some of the quotesin her article. Here is one:

“Suddenly, Iran can say to us: ‘Are your proposals actually
trustworthy if 47 senators say that no matter what the government agrees
to, we can subsequently take it off the table?’ ” German Foreign
Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said during a visit to Washington.

Screenshot of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) on Face the Nation Sunday, March 15.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) stood by his decision Sunday to send a letter
on a burgeoning nuclear deal directly to Iranian leaders. He insisted
on Face the Nation that “Iran’s leaders need to hear the message loud
and clear” that an Obama-brokered deal might not last past the end of
his administration without congressional approval, despite a stern letter from the White House Sunday night urging senators to hold off on congressional intervention.

But when asked by Face the Nation’s Bob Schieffer what better outcome
Cotton expects if a White House-led deal falls through, Cotton seemed
to make a key geographic mistake, suggesting that Tehran, the capital of
Iran, might be controlled by anyone other than Iranian leaders:

Schieffer: What do you want to happen here? What is your alternative here? Let’s say that the deal falls through, then what?
Cotton: Well as Prime Minister Netanyahu said, the alternative to a
bad deal is a better deal. The Iranians frequently bluff to walk away
from the table. if they bluff this week, call their bluff. The Congress
stands ready to impose much more severe sanctions. Moreover we have to
stand up to Iran’s attempts to drive for regional dominance. They already control Tehran increasingly they control Damascus and Beirut and Baghdad and now Sana’a as well. They do all that without a nuclear weapon. imagine what they would do with a nuclear weapon. READ MORE

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is known for waging political battles even if
the odds of success are slim. He famously launched a 21-hour filibuster
in a failed, last-ditch effort to repeal Obamacare. But his latest crusade may be his biggest challenge yet: repealing a federal law that does not exist.
On Twitter, Cruz blasted the federal government role in education and called for the repeal of Common Core:

Can Cruz “make DC listen”? It will be particularly hard since Common Core is not, in fact, a federal law.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Ten state legislatures are considering
legislation to permit concealed firearms on college campuses. Supporters
argue that firearms, especially in the hands of women, give potential
victims of sexual assault the power necessary to prevent or stop a
sexual assault. “If these young, hot little girls on campus have a
firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them,” Michele
Fiore, a Republican assemblywoman in Nevada, told the New York Times.

While the Editorial Board is
wholeheartedly committed to preventing sexual assault on college
campuses, we believe that this proposed legislation will do more harm
than good. Concealed carry on college campuses not only misses many of
the main points of sexual assault advocacy, it also places campus
communities in grave danger.

Guns, as tools, do not have the ability
to address the root problem of sexual assault: perpetrators. Arming
potential sexual assault survivors puts the onus of their protection on
the potential survivors, instead of on potential perpetrators to avoid
committing sexual assaults and on bystanders to intervene. Both
universities and policymakers alike should foster a campus culture where
potential sexual assaults are recognized and stopped before they
happen, not one in which students must rely on guns to ensure their own
safety.

Even if universities ultimately allow
concealed carry, in reality, a potential sexual assault victim would
find it impractical to carry around firearms for self-defense,
especially considering who sexual assault perpetrators are. According to
the National Institute of Justice, 90 percent of survivors in reported
college sexual assaults knew their assailants. This indicates that many
sexual assaults on college campuses occur in seemingly safe and ordinary
situations, in which a gun would not be easily accessible. READ MORE

*Here we go. Another high-strung, crazy-azz Republican a-hole showing us exactly what she’s made of.

This time its Tea Party radio host Andrea Shea King. She let ‘er rip spewing
her hatred for Congressional Black Caucus members. Of course she
wrapped it around a cause and suggested that those lawmakers who
boycotted Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s should be killed.
More specifically, they should be hanged.

“Obama doesn’t have to run for reelection again, a lot of these guys do,” King said on the audio that was published by Right Wing Watch.
“Listen, I would like to think that these guys could pay with their
lives, hanging from a noose in front of the U.S. Capitol Building.”

Find out what her twisted, jacked up, racist logic is at at EURThisNthat.

“I come from a town where all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks,'” Alday said to a reporter for The Clarion-Ledger, a Mississippi newspaper, earlier this month. “They don’t work.” READ MORE

This morning, my husband mentioned that he'd heard a discussion that
included some conjecture on the possibility that Netanyahu's diatribe
against a nuclear nonproliferation deal with Iran might actually push
Iran closer to an agreement. That may prove prescient.

Just now, I've come across the official response from Iran's foreign
minister to the letter from 47 Republican senators (aka Netanyahu's fan
club) that has immediately become infamous.

Asked about the open letter of 47 US Senators to Iranian
leaders, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif, responded that
"in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda
ploy. It is very interesting that while negotiations are still in
progress and while no agreement has been reached, some political
pressure groups are so afraid even of the prospect of an agreement that
they resort to unconventional methods, unprecedented in diplomatic
history. This indicates that like Netanyahu, who considers peace as an
existential threat, some are opposed to any agreement, regardless of its
content.

Zarif expressed astonishment that some members of US
Congress find it appropriate to write to leaders of another country
against their own President and administration. He pointed out that from
reading the open letter, it seems that the authors not only do not
understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances
of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the
conduct of foreign policy.

I admit I felt quite a bit of schadenfreude as I read the words of this
obviously intelligent and well read man lecturing these moronic
Republicans about their own country's constitution and international
law. READ MORE

HUDSON, N.H. -- Jeb Bush said he would be open to
allowing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and said his position
on immigration is “the grown-up plan.”

The former Florida governor, a vocal supporter of granting legal
status to some undocumented immigrants as part of a broader immigration
overhaul, offered a robust defense of his immigration policy during a
discussion with local business leaders here.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Well, anything you propose is amnesty,’ but
that’s not a plan,” Mr. Bush said during a discussion with local
business leaders here. “That’s a sentiment, that’s not a plan. I think
the best plan, the most realistic plan, the grown up plan, if you will,
is once you control the border and you’re confident it’s not going to
be another magnet, is to say, ‘Let’s let these folks achieve earned
legal status where they work, where they come out of the shadows.’”

Later, during a brief exchange with reporters, Mr. Bush said he
could also be supportive of a path to citizenship for people in the
country illegally -- as he did at one time -- but said there currently
isn’t sufficient political support for it. READ MORE